Chiang Mai Thai's Mango Sticky Rice

Chiang Mai Thai Restaurant

4898 Emerald St., 208-342-4051

Mango sticky rice is a Thai dessert staple. To make the mildly sweet tropical dish, a special variety of white glutinous rice is soaked for several hours and then steamed in a bamboo pot. The resulting sticky, chewy pile is then drizzled in a coconut milk-sugar-salt glaze and heaped with hunks of fresh mango. It's a gut-warming, comfort food treat without the triple-chocolate-cheesecake calorie guilt.

Chiang Mai Thai's mango sticky rice is a variation on the traditional theme--using sticky black rice instead of white. And though it may not be a looker, it's the mayor of tasty town. A dense rectangular mound of purple-black rice is heaped with chunks of sherbet-orange mango and a ladle of ... questionable ... white sauce. Though the warm, gooey, ghost-white sauce is somewhat unsettling as it pools on the dark rice, it completely makes the dish. The slightly sweet, slightly salty, slightly coconutty sauce plays off the chewy, nutty flavor of the warm rice and the cool freshness of the mango. It is at once fresh and filling, providing a calming end to a fiery Thai meal.